My review is going to be extremely biased because I love these kinds of movies. I thought Skyline was quite entertaining and Battle Los Angeles pretty good, though I never liked Independence Day for some reason.
The movie derives heavily from other movies in the genre. We get the zapper from War of the World that zaps humans to ash, iridescent aliens from Skyline but they're yellow here, and the empty city from Vanishing on 7th Street except that the city here is Moscow. Similar to the above movies, we follow a small group of survivors as they try to escape the human extermination. The alien invaders eschew WMDs and choose "hand to hand" combat, patrolling as near invisible ball of sparks and zapping humans to ash as they find them.
One thing I should probably clarify is that this is a sci-fi movie and not a horror movie. I am making this distinction because the aliens though deadly and powerful do have their limitations that create rules for surviving and fighting them.
Another thing I noted was that the movie really respects its Russian characters even though the movie is presented through American eyes. I noticed that Timur Bekmambetov was a producer in the movie and had probably something to do with it. We meet the heroic soldiers fighting the aliens, the resourceful young girl, and the crazy scientist using homemade equipment to figure out the aliens. This is quite refreshing since most American productions in foreign countries suffer from this malaise that they make the local characters weak and one dimensional.
If you like this genre, this is an above average movie in the genre and quite entertaining. I don't think it manages to rise above its genre but as an action, sci-fi movie with 3D and lots of special effects it's worth the ticket price.
The movie derives heavily from other movies in the genre. We get the zapper from War of the World that zaps humans to ash, iridescent aliens from Skyline but they're yellow here, and the empty city from Vanishing on 7th Street except that the city here is Moscow. Similar to the above movies, we follow a small group of survivors as they try to escape the human extermination. The alien invaders eschew WMDs and choose "hand to hand" combat, patrolling as near invisible ball of sparks and zapping humans to ash as they find them.
One thing I should probably clarify is that this is a sci-fi movie and not a horror movie. I am making this distinction because the aliens though deadly and powerful do have their limitations that create rules for surviving and fighting them.
Another thing I noted was that the movie really respects its Russian characters even though the movie is presented through American eyes. I noticed that Timur Bekmambetov was a producer in the movie and had probably something to do with it. We meet the heroic soldiers fighting the aliens, the resourceful young girl, and the crazy scientist using homemade equipment to figure out the aliens. This is quite refreshing since most American productions in foreign countries suffer from this malaise that they make the local characters weak and one dimensional.
If you like this genre, this is an above average movie in the genre and quite entertaining. I don't think it manages to rise above its genre but as an action, sci-fi movie with 3D and lots of special effects it's worth the ticket price.